Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/695

Rh P R E P R E 671 led him to promulgate the opinions which are known as Arminianism, and which led to the summoning of the synod of Dort (see ARMINIUS and DORT). The canons of Dort, while not definitively exclusive of supralapsarianism, are favourable to the sublapsarian view ; and the West minster divines followed the lead of Dort in constructing their Confession so as to admit of signature by either party. Meanwhile the Church of Rome had been torn by similar diversities of opinion. The council of Trent was careful not to offend the Dominicans by explicitly repudi ating Augustinian doctrine. But, as time went on, the Jesuit MOLINA (q.v.) stirred the sleeping controversy by a well-meant and decidedly able attempt to reconcile free will and God s foreknowledge. A still more serious dis turbance was created by the strenuous efforts of Jansen to revive the decaying Augustinianism of the church. But neither then nor in more recent times has anything essential been added to the argument on either side ; and until our knowledge of the freedom of the will becomes more scientific that is, more accurate, thorough, and reliable it is impossible that the argument can advance. During the last two centuries the discussion in England has turned not so directly on the truth or falsity of Calvinism as upon the question whether the Church of England Articles are or are not Calvinistic. This question has been reopened at various times at the dismissal of Baro from the Margaret professorship at Cambridge at the close of the 16th century; on occasion of Dr Samuel Clarke s plea for Arian subscription ; in connexion with the Wesleyan claim that the Articles favoured Arminianism ; and again, in this century, in the Bampton lectures of Archbishop Lawrence. The arguments which may be gathered from the actual terms of the seventeenth Article itself are very fairly stated by Bishop Burnet, who, though himself an Arminian, frankly allows that Calvinists can sign the Article with less scruple than Arminians, &quot; since the Article does seem more plainly to favour them.&quot; The historical facts regarding the theological school to which the framers of the Articles belonged are very fully given in Goode s Effects of Infant Baptism. 1 In Germany, not withstanding Herder s dismissal of the subject of pre destination with the curse, &quot;May the hand wither that shall ever bring it back,&quot; theologians still range them selves in opposite camps, Kliefoth, Frank, and Sartorius advocating the Augustinian doctrine, while Thomasius, Hofmann, and Luthardt attempt a middle course. Lipsius justly observes that the solution of the problem of pre destination is the solution of the religious problem in general. The Augustinian theory is not an isolated doctrine which may be accepted or rejected without any material alteration of fundamental beliefs. It is rather a deliverance upon the relation which subsists between God and the world, that is, upon the radical problem of philosophy. No doubt it is rather in a theological than in a philosophical interest that the subject has usually been debated. It has been felt that the Augustinian theory accords better with the devout humility of the religious spirit, and lays a sure ground for hopeful confidence ; while the opposed theory is considered to be more likely to excite human effort and secure a more satisfactory level in conduct, if not a higher spiritual condition. Both parties have been influenced by a perhaps somewhat officious zeal for the divine reputation, the one party being concerned to maintain God s sovereignty, the other His goodness. Our ignorance of the divine nature, and our inability to apprehend the subtlety of His connexion with the world, have not been sufficiently allowed for by either party. Is God the absolute sovereign without whose will no indi vidual act is done ? Is He in all things by His essence and will ? Then the Calvinistic scheme seems alone legitimate. As Calvin himself argues, if God has not absolutely decreed all things, then &quot; ubi erit ilia Dei omnipotentia, qua secundnm arcanum consilium, quod aliunde non pendet, omnia moderatur?&quot; (Inst., iii. 23, 7). And yet, if God s sovereignty is thus universal, can the freedom of the human will be preserved in more than name ? Is not the world 1 A review of the controversy and its literature will lie found in Cunningham s Reformers and Theology of the Reform., Essay iv. ; and, on the other side, Hardwick s Hist, of tlie Articles may be consulted. of human thought and action reduced to a mere play of puppets, a pantheistic sham ? If God s will has determined all that is to be, what real power of origination is left to man ? He who determines upon a certain event sets in operation such causes as will produce it, and is himself its proper efficient cause. If God is thus the real cause of all that is, the universe would seem to be merely God evolving Himself, and there has been no true creation, no bringing into being of wills separate from His own. The grave difficulty, therefore, with which the strict doctrine of predestination has always to contend is its apparent inconsistency with human accountability. It is accused generally of colliding with human freedom, and particularly of representing God as the author of sin. This consequence of their teaching Calvinists repudiate. They maintain that by God s foreordination of whatsoever comes to pass &quot; violence is not offered to the will of the creature&quot;; and they have adopted various methods of relieving their doctrine from the odium of this charge. The character of an act has been separated from its substance or actuality, and, while its character is ascribed to man s free will, its actuality is referred to God s sustaining energy. Or it has been supposed that God may have created men with the power of originating action, so that, though dependent upon God for life, yet when kept in life men can act freely. But this scarcely meets the difficulty, for Calvinism maintains that each individual act is determined by God. Others again prefer to relegate these seeming contradictions to the region of the unknowable, and to say with Locke : &quot; I cannot have a clearer perception of anything than that I am free, yet I cannot make freedom in man consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in God, though I am as fully per suaded of both as of any truth I most firmly assent to ; and there fore I have long since given off the consideration of that question, resolving all into the short conclusion that if it be possible for God to make a free agent, then man is free, though I see not the way of it.&quot; (M. D.) PRE-EMPTION. See SALE. PRELATE. See ABBOT and BISHOP. PRELLER, FEIEDRICH (1804-1878), German landscape- painter, was born at Eisenach on 25th April 1804. After studying drawing at Weimar, he went in 1821, on Goethe s advice, to Dresden, where he made such progress that in 1824 he was invited to accompany the grand-duke of Weimar to Belgium, where he became a pupil in the academy at Antwerp. From 1827 to 1831 he studied in Italy, and in the last-named year he received an appoint ment in the Weimar school of art. In 1834-36 he exe cuted in tempera six pictures on subjects taken from the Odyssey in the &quot;Roman House&quot; at Leipsic, in 1836-37 the landscapes with scenes from Oberon in the Wieland room in the grand-ducal palace at Weimar, and in 1836- 48 six frescos in Thuringian subjects commissioned by the grand-duchess. In 1840 he visited Norway and produced a number of easel works, some of which are preserved at Weimar. In 1859 he revisited Italy, and on his return in 1861 he completed for the grand-ducal museum the landscapes illustrative of the Odyssey, which are held to constitute his chief claim to fame, entitling him to rank with Poussin and Claude Lorraine in the hierarchy of painters. Preller, who was also a successful etcher, died at Weimar on 23d April 1878. PRELLER, LUDWIG (1809-1861), author of well-known works on Greek and Roman mythology, was born at Ham burg on 15th September 1809. He studied philology at Leipsic under Gottfried Hermann, at Berlin under Bockh, and at Gottingen under O. Miiller, graduating at the last- named university in 1832. After &quot; habilitating &quot; as privat- docent in Kiel, he was called in 1838 to an ordinary pro fessorship at Dorpat, which, however, he speedily resigned along with several other German professors in consequence of misunderstandings with the Russian governing body. He afterwards spent some time in Italy, but settled in Jena in 1844, where he became professor in 1846. In the same year he removed to Weimar as head librarian and hofrath. In 1852 he travelled in Greece and Asia Minor. His death occurred at Weimar on 21st June 1861. Preller s chief works are Dcmcter u. Persephone (1837), Gricchisclie Mytholoyie (1854-55 ; 3d ed., 1872-75), and Romische Mytholoyie (1858 ; 3d ed., 1878). He also co-operated with H. Ritter in the preparation of a useful Hisloria philosophic gr&cee et roinanse